It's time once more: Another week, another Friday, and another round of new firmware! This week, we have updates for six large-sensor cameras from Ricoh and Leica to report on.

We'll start with Ricoh, which has updated cameras sold under both its own brand, and the Pentax badge. New firmware for the Ricoh GR enthusiast compact -- which we reviewed last July -- adds a variety of handy new features. Perhaps most surprisingly, the fastest shutter speed at the lens' maximum aperture of f/2.8 has been raised to 1/2500 second, rather than the original limit of 1/2000 second. (Previously, you had to stop the lens down to f/3.5 to get a shutter speed of 1/2500 second.) There's also a new 47mm crop mode, a Maximum Aperture Priority shooting mode, support for raw file transfer with compatible Eye-Fi cards, and the ability to use the shutter button to confirm some settings, among other changes.

The shutter speed at maximum aperture can now be set up to 1/2500 second.

The order of the icons for No.21 to No.25 in the shooting display has been changed.

Playback Mode

Pressing the shutter release button fully after starting up the camera in playback mode will now switch it to record mode.

Shooting Menu

47mm crop function has been added. The existing [Crop to 35mm] option has ben renamed [Crop]. It has three options: [OFF], [35mm] and [47mm].
Note: When set to [47mm], [L] or [M] cannot be selected for the picture size, and RAW files will be recorded as [S] size.

New [P Mode Selection] option in Program and Manual modes offers a choice of normal or maximum aperture priority modes.

Added [Eye-Fi RAW Transfer] option, available only when using Eye-Fi cards which support raw files. It has two options: [Allow] and [Deny].

Playback Menu

When transferring images using [Eye-Fi Transfer Selected Images], the number of remaining images to be transferred is displayed on the playback screen.

Image files with a folder number over 200 can now be transferred using [Eye-Fi Transfer Selected Images]. The file names of transferred images consist of the last two digits of the folder name plus the last six digits of the file name.

More details and the firmware download can be found on the Ricoh website.

The Pentax K-5 II and IIs digital SLRs have also been updated by Ricoh this week. Firmware version 1.06 for the two cameras corrects issues with instability in the previous version 1.05 firmware, which was released in the first half of September. That firmware added support for the company's new all-weather flash strobes, as well as its new HD-coated DA Limited lenses. There are no other changes disclosed in the Pentax K-5 II / IIs firmware v1.06 update, which you can get here, although as always the company promises "improved stability for general performance".

And so we come to Leica. Yesterday, the company announced a new 45mm f/2.8 prime lens for the S-mount. The new lens comes accompanied by updated firmware for the Leica S, S2 and S2-P camera bodies. As well as supporting this new lens, the latest firmware adds Korean-language support, improves screen color temperature, allows bracketing and self-timer settings to be stored in user profiles, and more. The full list of changes courtesy of Leica is as follows: